Assault-weapons ban: What happened to 12 attempts to reinstate it

FILE - In this Jan. 5, 2005 file photo, Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley points to a .50-caliber assault weapon during a news conference in Chicago. The Illinois Supreme Court is scheduled to announce Thursday, April 5, 2012, whether it is constitutional for Cook County officials to ban assault weapons. The county imposed the ban back in 1993. It has been upheld by trial courts and appeals courts. But opponents think their case gained new strength when the U.S. Supreme Court struck down a Chicago ordinance banning handguns. They hope the state's high court will agree and toss out the ban on assault weapons. (AP Photo/M. Spencer Green, File)

Assault-weapons ban: What happened to 12 bills to reinstate it

The assault-weapons ban expired in 2004, and a dozen attempts to renew or reinstate it failed.

Storified by Digital First Media · Sat, Dec 15 2012 13:54:19

In 1994, President Clinton signed a law barring the manufacture of certain semi-automatic rifles. The so-called assault-weapons ban expired in 2004, however, and was not renewed.

Below is a list of the 12 bills that would have reinstated the federal assault-weapons ban. Most of the sponsors and cosponsors are Democrats. A number of the high-profile supporters ran for the Democratic presidential nomination in either 2004 or 2008, but Democratic leaders in Congress mostly kept their distance from the proposals.

The bills begin with a flurry of activity in 2003 just before the ban was due to expire and again in 2004 just after it expired. When they became stuck in committee, sponsors tried some tricky legislative maneuvers to put them up for a vote by the entire chamber, but those failed. Each later attempt had fewer and fewer cosponsors.

No bill to reinstate the assault-weapons ban has been filed since 2008.

What it would have done: Made the assault-weapons ban permanent and added other restrictions.

What happened: It was referred to the a subcommittee of the House Judiciary Committee, where no action was taken. A discharge petition, a rare legislative maneuver designed to bring a bill to the floor for a vote without passing through committee, was filed. It reached 72 signatures, including Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi, but fell far short of the 218 it needed.